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CHAPTER VII
THE DOCTRINE OF KARMA
“Our deeds still travel with us from a far, And what we have been makes us what we are"
- George Elliot
The doctrine of Karma occupies a more significant position in the Jaina philosophy than it does in the other Indian philosophies. It is a matter of common experience that happiness and misery are experienced without any apparent reason. Good men suffer and wicked persons appear to thrive enjoying life without any difficulty. · Persons with merit and possessing high educational qualifications seem to rot at the bottom while people with lesser abilities with pious character are found suffering, facing difficulties of various types. These inequalities are explained away popularly by reference to fate or destiny. Others say that "there is a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will”. Are men and women helpless creatures at the mercy of some force, known or unknown ?
The supreme importance of the doctrine of Karma lies in providing a rational and satisfying explanation to the apparently inexplicable phenomena of birth and death, of happiness and misery, of inequalities in mental and physical attainments and of the existence of different species of living beings.
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